“A trifle bald-headed, but a true friend when needed, eh?” said the Idiot.
“I try to be,” said Mr. Pedagog, pleasantly complacent.
“Well, you succeed in both,” said the Idiot.
“For your trifling baldness is evident when you remove your hat, which, like a true gentleman, you never fail to do at the breakfast-table, and, after a fifteen years’ experience with you, I for one can say that I have found you always the true friend when I needed you—I never told how, without my solicitation and entirely upon your own initiative, you once loaned me the money to pay Mrs. Pedagog’s bill over which she was becoming anxious.”
“John,” cried Mrs. Pedagog, severely, “did you ever do that?”
“Well, my dear—er—only once, you know, and you were so relieved—” began Mr. Pedagog.
“You should have lent the money to me, John,” said Mrs. Pedagog, “and then I should not have been compelled to dun the Idiot.”
“I know, my dear, but you see I knew the Idiot would pay me back, and perhaps—well, only perhaps, my love—you might not have thought of it,” explained the school-master, with a slight show of embarrassment.
“The Ideal Husband is ever truthful, too,” said the landlady, with a smile as broad as any.
“Well, it’s too bad, I think,” said the Lawyer, “that a man has to be verging on sixty-three to be an Ideal Husband. I’m only forty-four, and I should hate to think that if I should happen to get married within the next two or three years my wife would have to wait at least fifteen years before she could find me all that I ought to be. Moreover, I have been told that I have black eyes.”